Personal foul penalties called per game are down 25.9% through the first four weeks of the 2013 season compared to the 2012 season. Here is the breakdown of personal foul penalties called per game from 2005 to 2013, the seasons for which I have data. The data includes all personal fouls called, whether they were accepted, declined, or offset.

The average personal fouls called per game from 2005-2012 was 1.74, so the 2013 average of 1.49 is down 14.4% from the average of those seasons. The only season before 2013 that is close in personal foul penalties per game is 2006, but the games for that season were shortened by the rules that caused the game clock to run more often.

Is the drop in personal foul penalties in 2013 a result of the new targeting rules? Since we’re only four weeks into the 2013 season, there may not be enough data yet to draw that conclusion. I’ll check back in the coming weeks to see where the numbers stand.

Last night’s Fiesta Bowl contained one of college football’s rarest plays, a PAT safety. When writing my data collection software, I did not consider a safety on a PAT play as a possibility worth coding for. Even if I did want to code for it, I did not have any examples of what the play-by-play would contain for such a play. Now I do.

In order to work around the lack of support in my code for the play in last night’s game, I had to adjust it to be a successful team PAT kick for Oregon so the Ducks would be credited with the point. Changing my software to handle this type of play will be on my to-do list this off-season.

The internet connection at my house has been down since Tuesday (curse you AT&T), so I haven’t been able to process any games or update the site. The problem is scheduled to be fixed on Saturday morning, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Hopefully I’ll be able to update as usual on Sunday.

After Cameron Newton‘s touchdown pass on Auburn’s opening drive of the SEC Championship game, CBS showed the stat that Newton is a perfect 19-for-19 passing in Auburn’s game-opening drives this season. After shaking off my disbelief at that stat — and wishing I had discovered it first — I wondered if any other quarterback in recent years has been perfect in his team’s game-opening drives for a season.

My play-by-play data goes back to 2005, and no other quarterback has been without an incompletion on opening drives for a season during that time (minimum of 10 opening drive pass attempts). The closest players were both in 2009, when Ryan Griffin of Tulane was 18-of-19 and Kyle Padron of SMU was 16-of-17.

I also wondered how Newton’s passing efficiency rating on opening drives compares to other quarterbacks. Here are the leaders this season in passing efficiency on their team’s opening drives (minimum of 15 pass attempts).

Since 2005, the QB with the highest passing efficiency rating on opening drives with a minimum of 15 attempts is Steven Moffett of UCF in 2005. He was 19-for-22 for 406 yards and 3 TD’s, for a rating of 286.38.

Stanford had three straight touchdown drives of 85 or more yards in the first half of its 48-14 win over California. That gives Stanford nine touchdown drives this season of 85 or more yards, which is tied for second in the FBS. Here are the FBS leaders this season in touchdown drives of 85 or more yards.

This weekend’s games include three games between teams on this list: Boise St. vs. Nevada, Michigan vs. Ohio St., and Michigan St. vs. Penn St. The Big 10 is obviously well-represented on the list. Also notice that TCU and Boise State are right there next to each other like they’ve been in the BCS standings much of the season.

Last Saturday’s game between Georgia and Auburn has stayed in the spotlight due to accusations of dirty play by Auburn defensive lineman Nick Fairley and the ejection of two other Auburn defensive lineman at the end of the game. Overall, the game was marred by twelve personal foul and unsportsmanlike conduct penalties, with the teams responsible for six apiece.

The twelve personal foul and unsportsmanlike conduct penalties tie that game with two others for the most penalties of those types in a game since 2005, which is as far back as I have individual penalty data. For personal fouls, I’m including all varieties of personal fouls, including chop blocks, face masks, roughing the passer, etc.

Here are the games with with the most personal foul and unsportsmanlike conduct penalties since 2005. The numbers include every personal foul penalty where a flag was thrown, even if it was offset by another penalty. Often times, a personal foul will be called against both teams on a play and they will offset each other. For the purpose of this list, it counts as two personal foul penalties in the game, even though no yardage was marked off by the referee and they don’t count in the game’s official penalty totals.

I would like to request that if you use stats from this website in your broadcast, website, newspaper, game notes, etc., that cfbstats.com be cited as the source of the data. Some of the traditional college football statistics on cfbstats.com can also be obtained from other sources, so I don’t expect to be cited for that data, though it would be appreciated. However, if you use statistics that can only be found on cfbstats.com like those I mentioned above, I would appreciate a reference to cfbstats.com as the source of the data.

When you cite this website, please refer to this website simply as cfbstats.com. For an online reference, I would appreciate a link to the home page of cfbstats.com or a link to the page containing the specific statistic mentioned in the article.

Like anybody that creates a website, I would like as many people as possible to be aware of and use cfbstats.com. Citing this website when you use the data helps increase the awareness.

Finally, to those college football writers, bloggers, and websites that support and regularly cite cfbstats.com, thank you very much.

After removing some splits from the site last week, I found out that the “vs. Winning/Non-Winning” splits were more popular than I thought, so they’ve been brought back to life. As I said, the “vs. Winning/Non-Winning” splits were hard to let go, so I’m okay with bringing them back. I like the splits that I have on the site now and don’t have any further plans to change them. Thanks to everyone for their feedback.